62 BRUUN 



voyage I had the good fortune to be one of Johannes Schmidt's assistants. 

 In 1943 I attempted to extract all the biological information which could 

 be gained from this limited but unique material, which was so much 

 larger than all other combined collections. 



The Galathea Expedition Round the World, 1950-52, was especially 

 aimed at the benthic fauna of the deep sea, while the Dana expeditions 

 had specialized in the oceanic pelagic fauna; therefore we did not expect 

 to catch Spirula, with the possible exception of a few stray specimens like 

 those taken by the earlier expeditions while studying the bottom animals. 

 One specimen was actually caught in this way. Another single haul 

 yielded 26 specimens, and the conditions were such as to cause me to con- 

 sider to what extent the conclusions I reached in 1943 should be revised. 

 I hope that this reconsideration of the problem will encourage scientists 

 who have the opportunity of collecting in ocean areas where Spirula must 

 be extremely common to study this highly interesting cephalopod. 



Colman (1954) suggests that there may be special difficulties in 

 catching Spirula because of its vertical movements. I think the main 

 reason is that too few have tried to catch the animal where it lives. During 

 the Dana Expedition of 1928-30 the leader, Professor Johannes Schmidt, 

 asked that a special effort be made to show a live Spirula to our guest 

 on board, the late Dr. Th. Mortensen. This was done at Dana Station 

 4014, close to the Canary Islands, where Spirula has been taken fre- 

 quently in pelagic catches. We towed the stramin-nets for an hour at 

 depths chosen according to our previous experience, and Dr. Mortensen 

 and I were equally happy about the resulting seven specimens. This 

 experience would indicate that a special study of the biology of Spirula 

 would be a very rewarding task for a research vessel and would un- 

 doubtedly give positive results. 



2. NEW RECORDS 



Galathea Station 203, at which the 26 specimens were caught, is 

 situated off the coast of Natal, South East Africa (25°36' S., 35°2r E.), 

 with depths ranging from 660 to 720 meters. The gear used was a Danish 

 commercial otter-trawl, of the light type used for herring, about 32 

 meters wide at the opening. The 2200 meters of wire were paid out at 

 an inclination of 30°-34°. The entire operation was carried out success^ 

 fully according to the Kullenberg system (Kullenberg, 1951). The haul, 

 which started at 20.00 h., was of 70 minutes duration, and the direction 

 was 170°. The weather was remarkably fine: wind S. E. to E. 1, sea 

 S. E. 1, swell 1. The reason for trawling in relatively moderate depths 

 was partly to ascertain the efficiency of the gear and partly to get some 



